The much-anticipated Intelligence Community report backing up its claims that the Russians hacked the US elections in November has just been released. Titled "Declassified Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections," the report is long on speculation and short on any evidence for the claims it was supposed to prove. It even came with a warning label stating that though the conclusions are reached with "high confidence," that "does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgements may be wrong." We who lived through the 2002 "high confidence" in Iraqi WMDs remember this possibility well. (...)

Perhaps most surprising about the report -- and perhaps as a result of the paucity of evidence for the claims of "hacking -- is that a full third of its length is dedicated to quite unsophisticated criticism of the Russian television station RT.

What's the $80-plus billion dollar per year US Intelligence Community's big beef with RT? One of its big complaints is that RT undermined US democracy when it "broadcast, hosted, and advertised third-party candidate debates..." We are to believe that Russia undermined our political system by giving voice to official yet minor US political parties? Democracy is undermined when the democratic process is highlighted? (...)

he Kremlin funds RT to the tune of $190 million per year, states the report, and its audience keeps growing. The report does not mention that the US government spends vastly more -- $780 million for 2017 -- on its worldwide propaganda effort through the government-funded Broadcasting Board of Governors. Do what we say but not what we do. But then again, as National Intelligence Director James Clapper told the Senate yesterday, pointing out US government hypocrisy is itself indicative of a Russian influence operation in action.

Another problem the US spy agencies have with RT is that it reports on the surveillance state created by those same spy agencies. The Report states, "RT's reports often characterize the United States as a 'surveillance state' and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties." So RT is guilty of being a Kremlin plot to undermine our freedom because it points out that the US government has already undermined our freedom?